Graveside Vigil
by Kei Tree
Summary: The night after Buffy's funeral... Giles mourns the only Daughter he has ever known. Please Review!


Notes: Just an odd short piece I wrote... My first Buffy fanfiction.   
I always liked Spike and Giles. ~Kei  
  
Rated: PG  
  
Disclaimer: Standard disclaimers apply... yadda yadda =)   
  
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~Graveside Vigil~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
He let one trembling hand rest on the tombstone. It was cold,  
hard, unyielding under his questing fingers and he gripped it fiercely,   
letting the stone cut deeply into his palm. He knelt on the damp   
earth, on the freshly turned dirt. The other hand, shaking like the   
first, touched one of the dozens of bright flowers that surrounded the   
headstone before traveling downward, to rest upon the clay like earth.   
  
He bowed his head, let hair that hadn't been cut in weeks fall   
forward and obscure a face that, kept young by her life, was   
infinitely older by surviving her death. A name stirred and died on   
his lips even as he fought a tearless sob. He had no tears left,   
since her funeral.  
  
He had been a Father to her, and she, his Daughter. He had   
been sent to her for duty's sake but had stayed, through death and   
grief and the raging fires of Hell, for love. Rupert Giles and Buffy   
Summers... He had never called her his Daughter but there were times   
that it was so clear between them... When her eyes lifted, met his,   
and for one instant he saw how much Buffy cared for him, how much he   
meant to her, a girl bereft of a future, surrounded by demons so much   
more real and concrete than anyone else's.   
  
He rarely understood Buffy in the years that he had been   
graced with her presence, those too short years, but he understood   
their relationship, and that had always been enough. He had loved   
women but he had never had a family that he could call his own by   
blood... By love though... Buffy had been his family, and Willow and   
Xander and Dawn and the dozens of others who had drifted in and out of   
their timeless existence.   
  
He had never respected and cared for someone so much, not even   
Jenny Calendar- the woman who lay dead and buried in a grave so much   
colder than Buffy's, a woman killed by his almost Daughter's first   
love. Angel... Old anger, old rage, old hate that, but still there,   
a demon that Buffy had never even known was there to fight, nestled   
between his bruised heart and aching soul. He hated Angel still for   
what he had done to Jenny, hated him just as much for the pain he had   
caused Buffy.   
  
But what could he have done to stop that pain? He knew of   
passion's fire, so much different yet the same as Hell's. Mortal   
hearts can't contain it, that love, first love, true love, soul mates,   
that burned fiercer than any spell, than any weapon, that seared   
deeper and left bigger scars than any other. But his Daughter had   
learned of that fire though, had been tested, tempered, and proclaimed   
mistress of it. It had not been an easy lesson but he had stood   
beside her, through it all.   
  
He had shaped her, guided her, held her while she wept, and   
she wept in front of few. He had seen the girl become a woman, had   
watched her as she became a mythical Atlas, as she hoisted the world's   
burdens upon shoulders too slim to carry that kind of weight. Had   
watched her stand tall though, through the tears and laughter, watched   
her walk unfaltering...   
  
Had never faltered himself in his patient vigil of her, this   
earth's most unsung hero. He had helped her bury her mother, and he   
had seen her defeat a God. He had watched his almost Daughter die.   
  
His throat constricted at that last unbidden, unwanted   
thought, and the memories it called up. Her face, unholy in its   
serenity, that leap of faith, of blind faith, and the way the harsh   
lights had softened as they touched her still, cold, face, and painted   
it golden. They had gathered, her family by love, numbed by loss,   
unbelieving as she gently set the world down, and passed her duties to   
another, at last, some unnamed, untested girl. Someone who claimed   
another as Watcher. One who had never met her predecessor, who would   
never know how extraordinary of a reputation she had to live up to,   
who would never, by the rules decreed by the Powers to Be, know the   
woman, his Daughter, named Buffy.  
  
A hand, unsteady as his own, gripped his shoulder. Giles   
didn't turn to face Spike. The vampire dropped his hand and Giles   
heard, faintly, fumbling fingers lighting a cigarette. The smell of   
smoke reached him moments later.   
  
"Come on, old man. She..." tears clouded that voice and Giles   
wondered, distantly, how one could mourn so completely, so deeply,   
without a soul, for someone who fought for light when he was already   
pledged a thousand times to darkness, by each drop of blood he   
spilled. Spike continued doggedly. "Let's go get drunk somewhere, in   
some dark bloody pub." Giles didn't answer and Spike turned away   
before tortured eyes could be drawn back to all that remained of the   
one woman that had made him feel alive...  
  
Not that the drink helped any. Grief burned the alcohol away   
faster than he could drink it, no matter how strong it was. Giles's   
soft voice shattered his sorrow filled thoughts.  
  
"She... I know... I won't stay here forever, just tonight...   
For one last vigil. I, I am still her Watcher." Spike swallowed,   
took one last deep breath from his calming cigarette before tossing it   
to the damp ground and crushing it fiercely under one thick heeled   
boot.  
  
"Yeah..." he replied helplessly, "I know." He didn't leave   
though, and Giles didn't acknowledge his presence any more than that.   
The two men stayed there until dawn, one standing, one kneeling, one   
weeping unnoticed tears, one with saddened, dry eyes, one mourning a   
Love he never realized, one mourning a Daughter he never named.  
  
Buffy Summers was many things to many people. She saved the   
world, a lot. And she was gone.   
  
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~  
  
Don't stand beside my grave and weep,  
For I'm not there, I do not sleep,  
I am a thousand winds that blow,  
I am the diamond's glint on snow,  
I am the sunlight on ripened grain,  
I am the gentle autumn's rain.  
  
When you awaken in morning's hush,  
I am the swift uplifting rush,  
of quiet birds in circle flight,  
I am soft stars that shine at night,  
Don't stand beside my grave and cry,  
I am not there. I did not die.  
  
Author still unknown, "I did not die"  
(Prayer for the dead, Hopi Indian Tribe (not verified) 


End file.
